LARKANA: Speakers at a seminar held here on Sunday to mark the International Mother Language Day, which was celebrated every year on Feb 21, that Sindhi faced no threat of extinction ad there was nothing to worry about the future of the language.

They said at the programme organised by the Larkana chapter of the Sindhi Adabi Sangant that Sindhi did accept influence of certain local languages on its grammar and nomenclature but it did not face existential threat.

Mazhar Ali Dhotaey, a computer expert, said that they were alive to concerns about Sindhi and were taking practical steps to protect the language.

He said that efforts were under way to preserve the language by applying word net technology. Sindhi no longer faced any threat as computer experts had made great efforts to successfully get Sindhi listed in a group of modern languages, he said.

He shared his experiences with the audience and highlighted Sindhi’s immense strong flexibility to absorb and accommodate foreign words and give them local colour.

Essa Memon, a writer, said that Sindhi existed in Moenjodaro. Some linguists who had made tremendous contribution to Sindhi called it an offshoot of Sanskrit while others like Sirajul Haq Memon and Dr Ghulam Ali Allana believed Sindhi was an original language which had given birth to a number of other languages.

He said that at present more than 80 million people living in 86 countries around the globe could talk and understand Sindhi which was quite encouraging.

Anwar Dingraee, a research scholar of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai’s poetry, complained that today’s writers and poets were not contributing much to the language.

He said that Bhitai had extensively travelled Sindh and made himself well versed in all dialects of the language. His matchless contribution to the language was alive today in Shah Jo Risalo. Credit went to Bhitai for providing a strong foundation to Sindhi language, he said.

Riazat Buriro, a well-known researcher, said that Sindhi was rich in words and expressions and had a peculiar quality of accommodating and absorbing words of other languages.

He said that a variety of dictionaries covering different fields and subjects had been printed in Sindhi language but there was still great room for improvement.

Aziz Mangi said that Sindhi suffered a serious setback when a galaxy of textbook writers, publishers and literature lovers migrated to India in the wake of partition, leaving behind a large vacuum.

At present, he said, Sindhi faced multiple issues on the fronts of education, literature, economy, sociology etc which demanded extraordinary efforts.

He criticised Sindhi media and mushroom growth of private schools where Sindhi was suffering a great deal as a language. Concrete steps were needed to stop gradual damage to the language, he said.

Towards the end of the seminar, the gathering unanimously adopted a resolution demanding national language status for Sindhi and other languages in the country.

Published in Dawn, February 26th, 2018